Intimidate, entice and gag constitute the trio of strategies employed by Speaker Alvarez and the majority leadership to pass by hook or by crook House Bill No. 4727 reimposing the death penalty.
Intimidation by threatening PDP-Laban members and coalition allies, particularly deputy speakers and committee chairs, with reprisals if they do not vote for the death penalty bill
According to Speaker Alvarez, those against the retrogressive measure must leave PDP-Laban, while deputy speakers and committee chairs who will vote against the death penalty bill are to be replaced if they do not resign.
Pressuring Members and officers of the House to vote against their conscience is anathema to a democratic institution like the House of Representatives.
Enticement by (a) proposing to reduce the crimes punishable by death, and (b) instead of a mandatory death penalty for at least 16 crimes, a range from life imprisonment to death is projected to be an alternative. These are supposed to mollify opposition to the bill.
As long as any crime is punishable by death and the maximum penalty is still death, the watered down bill is no less repugnant to the inviolability of life and contrary to genuine justice.
Gagging by indiscriminately and arbitrarily limiting an interpellator to a solitary hour to debate, which one hour unreasonably includes the time consumed by the answers of the bills’ sponsors.
This is a gross misconstruction and blatant misapplication of Sec. 91 of Rule XII which provides that "A Member shall not be allowed to speak for more than one (1) hour in debate on any question."
The rule unequivocally guarantees that a Member who has risen to speak has at least one hour for himself alone, excluding the time consumed by the responses of the Member being interpellated.
In committee deliberations, it is well settled that the time allotted for an interpellator does not include the time consumed by the Chair, a Member or a guest responding to the questions.
Gagging Members who oppose the death penalty bill or any measure for that matter destroys the heart and soul of a deliberative assembly which is free and untrammeled debates.
No amount of intimidation, enticement and muzzling would validate and assure the passage of the death penalty bill which is definitely not the answer to criminality, poverty, and our flawed police, prosecutorial and judicial systems.
Moreover, reviving capital punishment violates the Philippines’ international commitment not to reimpose the death penalty under the Second Optional Protocol to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which the Philippines ratified in 2007, a year after it abolished the death penalty under RA No. 9346 .
EDCEL C. LAGMAN